"A two part question:a) WHY do most of us include incest along with rape as a valid reason for abortion?b) Is it not that incest leads to children with birth defects?c) Therefore should we not be restating the standard as "rape and/or birth defects" to be logically consistent?"

Crafty, I disagree; I think that was a 3-part question.

a) I don't know, but to me it has something to do with that with incest like rape the pregnancy resulted from an inappropriate relationship.b) That may be true, but my guess is what I described above. A kid born to parents who are brother/sister, mother/son etc. enters life with a host of problems beyond birth defects.c) "Logically consistent" is what set up these pro-life candidates for the rape abortion political trap. I am not comfortable or informed enough to comment on abortion for birth defect reasons from a law-writing perspective. We are all defective so that would be tricky line to write in law as more and more testing is possible.

Your probing questions stand for others to address.

My main point over time on this thread is about the moral question ahead of the legal question. You don't ban abortions when 50% of the people think there is nothing wrong with killing an unborn no different than you or me at the same point in the womb. From my point of view you first try to change hearts and minds.

My main point in yesterday's post was that rape is for certain one of the exceptions that will be included if we ever do write meaningful restrictions. Unite on that point and unite on your point that it is a state right and move the most divisive of issues off of the front burner, so that we can build a better coalition on the other political issues.

Doug: "pro-life conservatism defeats 'unadulterated liberty' by about 50-1 in the electoral marketplace."BBG: "I'm assuming the "50-1" is a typo as it certainly isn't reflected in any polling I've encountered."

Mitt Romney 59 million, Gary Johnson 1 million, for one example, or almost any race, any state, any year. That's all I was saying there.

You didn't address my question, liberty for whom - meaning who protects the unborn, the most innocent among us.

Liberty to me is that freedom that runs wild through us - right up to the point where it starts to harm someone else.

If one takes the extreme pro-choice view that the unborn is nothing, then defining liberty is simple, abortion kills nothing. That is fine, but I doubt most Democrats or even Libertarians agree with that, much less Republicans.

"Repubs tend to nominate folks the Dems can cast as right wing abortion zealots, and that ability costs elections."

Republicans could learn from these mistakes and nominate pro-lifers who merely declare that belief like Romney, Bush and Reagan did, show proper revulsion toward rape and all its consequences and go on to address other issues.

Similar to what I wrote about Aiken and Mourdock not advancing their own cause, only in the wildest dreams of the statists should the pro-liberty and the pro-life factions split up.

"Isn't Planned Parenthood a private organization that receives public monies?"

Yes. At least ACORN never killed anyone.

"The Dem. campaign seemed to purposely elevate PP to some sort of entitlement status; the Repubs had no effective response."

An axiom of this election is that a lie (or a really bad idea) not immediately refuted is scored as a debate point won.

Mitt Romney 59 million, Gary Johnson 1 million, for one example, or almost any race, any state, any year. That's all I was saying there.

Meh, apples and oranges where statist and statist lite suck up most the oxygen. Call it 100 to 1 once both sorts of statist are combined. Seeing as the statist market is cornered, perhaps another approach is in order assuming a different outcome is preferred?

Quote

You didn't address my question, liberty for whom - meaning who protects the unborn, the most innocent among us.

While you had little in the way of response to the Judith Jarvis Thompson piece I posted quite some time back that spoke to many of these distinctions far more eloquently than I will.

Be that as it may, I am intentionally avoiding getting into a "most innocent among us" argument because doing so feeds into the current dynamic. I'm asking instead what can shatter the current paradigm and lead to less statist outcomes? I don't see a way of getting from here to there with the abortion issue as the primary grail.

Another Planned Parenthood abortion clinic has been documented rushing a patient to a local hospital following a botched abortion that may have injured her and potentially claimed her life.

A St. Louis Planned Parenthood patient was rushed to a nearby hospital after suffering serious abortion complications the day before Thanksgiving. Paramedics arrived at the abortion clinic at approximately 2:45 p.m. on November 21, 2012, and removed the patient from the building with her face covered with a cloth.----------------

Some valid points in there, but the progress is pretty pathetic, and tragic. The pro-life movement is not about having a movement, it is about changing outcomes. 40 million slaughtered isn't what anyone in the movement would point to as making progress.

I think the imaging processes and ability to detect heartbeats etc. make the biggest difference. That information would get right to the people through science and mainstream professional journalism anyway, with or without a pro-life movement. (Just kidding.)

Removing a divisive issue from the electorate may sound good but isn't that mostly what oppressive governments do?

We had a Chinese student with us for Christmas break. People asked her about life back home near Shanghai, things like do you have brothers and sisters? A little cultural ignorance was exposed there. If siblings were conceived, their outcomes were "removed from the political process".

From the title I thought it was about the real Roe - Norma McCorvey - and her conversion and advocacy for pro-life.

Powerful piece BD! On the one hand, prosecuting mothers doesn't win anyone over to the movement. On the other hand, she sure showed signs of knowing she was killing someone:

"Following the instructions, she took the first pill right away and the others some hours later. That night, she started having cramps. The next morning, Christmas Eve, she delivered a dead fetus alone in her bathroom, along with the placenta and a great deal of blood.

The fetus was much bigger than she had expected. It was about a foot long, clearly female, with identifiable features and hair. McCormack wrapped the remains in a bag with the placenta. Then she put it in a box and hid it under her bed. That evening, she attended Christmas Eve dinner at her father’s place and dropped her daughter off with her ex-husband for an overnight visit. She wrapped the children’s presents, including new clothes she’d bought on layaway for her fashion-conscious daughter, and put them under the tree. She told no one about the abortion apart from her sister.

After about a week, the box began to emit an odor. McCormack wrapped it up in more bags and put it out on the back porch, on the shelf of a covered barbecue. It didn’t feel right to her to throw it away."... "what she wants most is a proper burial. “Just because of the circumstances doesn’t mean I’m heartless”

A five year felony seems so extreme. With facts just slightly different, born alive, killed, plotting trips, expenses, ordering supplies, across state lines, hiding the body etc, would look a lot like 1st degree murder. This one wasn't born alive, but it was a live little girl before she killed it. Having 2 kids already, she knew what it was.

Seven in 10 Americans believe Roe v. Wade should stand, according to new data from a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, as the landmark Supreme Court abortion-rights ruling turns 40 on Tuesday.

Seven in 10 Americans believe Roe v. Wade should stand, the most since 1989, according to data from a WSJ/NBC News poll, as the landmark Supreme Court abortion-rights ruling turns 40 on Tuesday. WSJ's Louise Radnofsky reports. Photo: Getty Images.

That is the highest level of support for the decision, which established a woman's right to an abortion, since polls began tracking it in 1989. The shift is mostly the result of more Democrats backing the decision—particularly Hispanics and African-Americans—and a slight uptick in support from Republicans.

But the poll showed a consistent tension in Americans' attitudes toward the decision. Almost seven in 10 respondents say there are at least some circumstances in which they don't support abortion.

Some 31% of respondents in the poll said abortion should always be legal, and 9% believed it should be illegal without any exceptions. Between those two opinions are the 23% who thought it should be legal most of the time, but with some exceptions, and the 35% who felt it should be illegal except in circumstances of rape, incest and to save a woman's life.

Since those questions were first asked, a decade ago, more people generally support abortion rights. But the majority of voters whose views aren't absolute has forced activists on both sides of the issue to rethink their message.

Antiabortion campaigners who once sought a constitutional amendment to overturn the decision have instead pursued legislation in Congress and the states aimed at highlighting aspects of abortion that have the potential to make voters uneasy. Those include restricting abortions later in pregnancy or because of the sex of the fetus, both of which are rare but are seen as resonating with voters.

"You really need to start with the abortions that are most controversial and where you have the broadest consensus, even if they are not that common," said Richard Doerflinger, associate director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' abortion and euthanasia campaigns. "All or nothing has produced nothing."

A 2011 Gallup poll found that especially large percentages of respondents were in favor of informed consent for women seeking abortions (86% of abortion-rights adults and 87% who are antiabortion) and making abortion illegal in the third trimester (79% of abortion-rights backers and 94% of those who are antiabortion).

The Long WarBoth sides agree: The campaign over abortion has become a long one.

View Interactive

..Opponents of abortion rights won passage of a record 92 measures restricting the procedure in 24 states in 2011, and an additional 43 in 19 states last year, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a think tank that favors abortion rights. Nine states have recently banned most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, although courts have kept two of the laws from taking effect.

This year, Texas, Indiana, and Missouri are set to consider restrictions on chemically induced abortions in the coming legislative session, and lawmakers in Indiana and South Carolina have sponsored bills adding regulations to clinics.

The new moves come after several states have passed bills in the past two years requiring abortion clinics to maintain certain staffing levels or install equipment such as ventilation systems that are typically in hospitals. The states describe those efforts as seeking to protect women's health, while abortion-rights backers say the aim is to increase costs and obstacles for abortion providers.

"I don't need a constitutional amendment to overturn Roe," said Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, an antiabortion law firm that works with state groups on local legislation. "Clinic regulations do actually challenge Roe."

Supporters of abortion rights said they scored some electoral wins last year after a few Republican candidates made high-profile misstatements about abortion in cases of rape.

Now, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, a group that works for the election of women who oppose abortion, said she would be training candidates to make sure they had an answer if they were asked why they opposed making exceptions for rape.

Kirsten Moore, until recently executive director of the Reproductive Health Technologies Project, said her abortion-rights group consulted with focus groups and experts on language, psychology and polling about incorporating Americans' mixed feelings about abortion into its messaging.

She said she concluded: "If we are willing to acknowledge the complexity of the issue…then we think we can have a conversation with the people in the middle and help them resolve that conflict in a pro-choice direction."

Supporters of abortion rights increasingly emphasize women's privacy, instead of focusing on broader rights, and frame having an abortion as a "decision" rather than a "choice." Last week, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America released an online video signaling that new approach.

"For many people, it's not a black and white issue," the video says of abortion. "Pro-choice? Pro-life? The truth is these labels limit the conversation.…When it comes down to it, we just don't know a woman's specific situation. We're not in her shoes."

Isn't that about where we are right now politically? Separate from the merits and morals of slaughtering our young, wouldn't you say about 70% have no concept of states' rights and would prefer to have an assembled, benevolent politburo decide the toughest issues for us, as long as they get it right?

Pro-life groups should concede the politics of the moment and move the other direction - push legislation that gives the mom a reasonable time after birth to decide whether the child raising thing is really something she wants to tackle. The fetus is still not viable. Did she lose her right of privacy at childbirth? No prosecution for the mother or the doctor for killing the baby in the first 30 days after birth. In Illinois I believe they called something like that the Obama doctrine.

When Ayanna Byer scheduled an appointment at Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains to take an abortion pill to end her pregnancy, there was no way for her to foresee the horrors ahead of her. Earlier this month, Byer, through the assistance of the attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom, brought a lawsuit to hold Planned Parenthood liable for the botched abortion that she did not consent to.

According to that complaint, when Byer arrived at the Planned Parenthood clinic, it was determined that her pregnancy was too far along to be terminated through the use of a pill, therefore a surgical abortion was recommended. Ms. Byer agreed upon the condition that she would receive IV anesthesia, for which she would be charged extra. Although the employees could not get the IV started, the doctor came to start the procedure anyway.

The complaint states:

At this time, Plaintiff immediately told the Planned Parenthood Doctor to stop and that she did not want to go through with the abortion procedure because she had not received any anesthetic. Plaintiff also informed Planned Parenthood Doctor and agents or employees of Planned Parenthood Defendants that she believed this to be a sign she should not go through with the abortion. The Planned Parenthood Doctor did not stop despite Plaintiff’s request, and assured Plaintiff the I.V. would be administered and the procedure would only take a few minutes.

At this time, the Planned Parenthood Doctor turned on the vacuum machines and told Plaintiff it was too late to stop.

Seven minutes later, due to Ms. Byer crying from pain, the procedure finally stopped. She received an apology and a prescription for a painkiller and antibiotics and was sent on her way. Planned Parenthood never followed up with her.

About two days later, Ms. Byer went to the hospital due to pain and bleeding, where it was found that part of the aborted baby was still inside her, resulting in an infection. She had to have emergency surgery.

When Ayanna Byer scheduled an appointment at Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains to take an abortion pill to end her pregnancy, there was no way for her to foresee the horrors ahead of her. Earlier this month, Byer, through the assistance of the attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom, brought a lawsuit to hold Planned Parenthood liable for the botched abortion that she did not consent to.

According to that complaint, when Byer arrived at the Planned Parenthood clinic, it was determined that her pregnancy was too far along to be terminated through the use of a pill, therefore a surgical abortion was recommended. Ms. Byer agreed upon the condition that she would receive IV anesthesia, for which she would be charged extra. Although the employees could not get the IV started, the doctor came to start the procedure anyway.

The complaint states:

At this time, Plaintiff immediately told the Planned Parenthood Doctor to stop and that she did not want to go through with the abortion procedure because she had not received any anesthetic. Plaintiff also informed Planned Parenthood Doctor and agents or employees of Planned Parenthood Defendants that she believed this to be a sign she should not go through with the abortion. The Planned Parenthood Doctor did not stop despite Plaintiff’s request, and assured Plaintiff the I.V. would be administered and the procedure would only take a few minutes.

At this time, the Planned Parenthood Doctor turned on the vacuum machines and told Plaintiff it was too late to stop.

Seven minutes later, due to Ms. Byer crying from pain, the procedure finally stopped. She received an apology and a prescription for a painkiller and antibiotics and was sent on her way. Planned Parenthood never followed up with her.

About two days later, Ms. Byer went to the hospital due to pain and bleeding, where it was found that part of the aborted baby was still inside her, resulting in an infection. She had to have emergency surgery.

I haven't read New York law but there is ALWAYS an exception for when the life of the mother is in danger. (Look for the iberals lie in the first sentence.) What child is "viable" when the mother is stabbing it or holding a plastic bag over its head?

We need legal abortion because we know many unwanting mothers will kill the baby anyway in what they used to call back alley abortions. Why not update the New York code for unwanted spouses. We know that a good number of them will be killed anyway. Why not facilitate that in a safer environment?

Even the journalist who showed up (and took this picture) had his story pulled:

Philly.com What I saw at the Gosnell trial phillyBurbs.com (blog) ‎- 16 minutes ago By J.D. Mullane ... “Big enough to walk me home,” joked Gosnell when he saw the child's remains, testified Ashly Baldwin, a clinic employee. 404 error Sorry, the page you requested could not be found.

"This case is about a doctor who killed babies and endangered women. What we mean is that he regularly and illegally delivered live, viable babies in the third trimester of pregnancy - and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors," it states. "The medical practice by which he carried out this business was a filthy fraud in which he overdosed his patients with dangerous drugs, spread venereal disease among them with infected instruments, perforated their wombs and bowels - and, on at least two occasions, caused their deaths."http://redflagnews.com/headlines/pic-empty-reserved-media-seating-section-at-trial-for-abortion-doctor-kermitt-gosnell----Hard to prosecute one flagrant killer when the whole aim is to kill. Hardly newsworthy after reporting constantly on the killing of 40+ million in American alone since Roe-Wade, with or without this disgusting abuse.

A young Philadelphia doctor “offered to perform abortions on 15 poor women who were bused to his clinic from Chicago on Mother’s Day 1972, in their second trimester of pregnancy.” The women didn’t know that the doctor “planned to use an experimental device called a ’super coil’ developed by a California man named Harvey Karman.

A colleague of Karman’s Philadelphia collaborator described the contraption as “basically plastic razors that were formed into a ball. . . . They were coated into a gel, so that they would remain closed. These would be inserted into the woman’s uterus. And after several hours of body temperature, . . . the gel would melt and these . . . things would spring open, supposedly cutting up the fetus.”

Nine of the 15 Chicago women suffered serious complications. One of them needed a hysterectomy. The following year, the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade. It would be 37 more years before the Philadelphia doctor who carried out the Mother’s Day Massacre would go out of business. His name is Kermit Gosnell.

Media Issues, Abortion and Cognitive Dissonance of the Left all in one...

Is that the proper Latin plural? And does 'little one' meaning 'little human' not really mean baby in the first place?

NYT runs a second story on Gosnell, on page A12. Did he kill more people than the Boston Marathon bomber(s) or didn't he?

-----Today's New York Times story [April 16, 2013], like the one last month, refers to the infants Gosnell is accused of murdering as "fetuses," although it also refers to them as "babies." This is another fascinating slip. Abortion proponents resolutely adhere to the convention of calling unborn children "fetuses" so as to conceal the similarity between (at least late-term) abortion and infanticide. By using the terms interchangeably, the Times unwittingly defeats this pro-abortion obscurantism, revealing what it means to conceal.

Leftist slipups are not uncommon on abortion due to the perverted twisting of logic necessary to endorse it. Noted previously in this thread is when Justice Breyer refers to the woman having an abortion as a mother. A mother of WHAT? Previous children??

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/04/29/gosnells-abortion-atrocities-no-aberration-column/2122235/-----Read it at the link. The facts coming out of this trial are sickening and too gruesome for me to post. ("one of the severed feet found in jars at the clinic belonged to her aborted baby.") This creature of death and human carnage they call a doctor faces the death penalty for doing things that Illinois State Senator Barack Obama wanted to legalize. The difference between prosecutable 1st degree murder happening in the operating room in at least 4 provable cases and what these so called doctors and clinics do legally for a living is slight.

How do so many people, voters, media, health inspectors, religious leaders, advocates for women, girls, for the poor and minorities, pretend to be unaware, morally neutral, or stay silent about this whole industry?

Still they write: "we could have awarded Four Pinocchios to the former Illinois senator for his comments to the Christian Broadcasting Network (denying the bill said what it said), but that interview is several years old now, and it’s not the focus of this particular column."

The US Senate (pre-Obama) passed essentially the same bill the same year (2002) at the federal level by unanimous consent, proving the obvious, that Barack Obama was furthest to the Nazi-Stalinist Left in the Senate even before he even arrived.

The Atlantic, and everyone else in media it seems, is aghast that Jimmy Connors hinted that Chris Evert had an abortion during their engagement, in a year that both of them won Wimbledon. The outrage seems to hint that people might think she did something wrong. It is a book about his life, public and private. It's not like she killed his first kid - without even discussing it with him. Or is it.

If it is illegal to kill what comes out of the mother in the third trimester in PA because the law determines it to be a baby (and is that not the basis of this prosecution?) then why does the media refer to what happened here as babies that were born as a result of "botched abortions"?

By the logic of the law, is it not murder to kill the baby inside the mother as well?

And why are the mothers also not being prosecuted for their part in killing their babies as apparently "babies" are defined in PA law?

The bill would affect 1.3 percent of the 1.2 million abortions per year in the US. 20 weeks is an estimate close to viability and of when the little ones begin to feel pain. [Liberals express more compassion for the elbow room of chickens raised for food.]----Pres. Obama: "This bill is a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade and shows contempt for women's health and rights, the role doctors play in their patients' health care decisions, and the Constitution."

KIRKLAND, Wash. — I BELIEVE that parenthood starts before conception, at the moment you decide you want a child, and are ready and able to create a safe and loving home for her or him. I support abortion rights, but I reject the false distinction between the terms “pro-choice” and “pro-life.” Here’s why.

A lawyer by training, I was 38 when I completed a term on the Seattle City Council. Two years later, I married my husband, who is five years younger. We wanted children, and started trying right away, but had trouble conceiving.

Using in vitro fertilization, we had our son, Matthew, now 4. When he was 2, after another round of I.V.F., we conceived again. I was six weeks pregnant when I learned I was carrying twins, a boy and a girl. We were elated.

But in my 20th week, during an ultrasound, the technician looked concerned, and we got the first hint that something might be wrong. The next day, a Friday, my obstetrician called to say that the technician had had a hard time seeing the heart of the male fetus. “It is probably just the position,” she reassured me. I wasn’t reassured.

On Monday, I had a second ultrasound and my husband and I spent two hours — it felt like an eternity — with a different doctor and technician. “It looks as if the boy has a herniated diaphragm,” they told us. “All the organs are in his chest and not developing.”

I began sobbing. What did that mean? Would the organs move? Was my baby “fixable”? The clinic staff members were reluctant to tell us how bad it was. They said I needed an M.R.I., which would provide more details.

My world stopped. I loved being pregnant with twins and trying to figure out which one was where in my uterus. Sometimes it felt like a party in there, with eight limbs moving. The thought of losing one child was unbearable.

The M.R.I., at Seattle Children’s Hospital, confirmed our fears: the organs were pushed up into our boy’s chest and not developing properly. We were in the 22nd week. In Washington State, abortion is legal until the 24th week.

After 10 more days of tests and meetings, we were in the 23rd week and had to make a decision. My husband is more conservative than I am. He also is a Catholic. I am an old-school liberal, and I am not religious. But from the start, and through this ordeal, we were in complete agreement. We desperately wanted this child and would do whatever we could to save him, if his hernia was fixable and he could have a good quality of life.

Once we had all the data, we met with a nurse, a surgeon and a pediatrician at the hospital. The surgeon said our boy had a hole in his diaphragm. Only one lung chamber had formed, and it was only 20 percent complete. If our boy survived birth, he would be on oxygen and other life supports for a long time. The thought of hearing him gasp for air and linger in pain was our nightmare.

The surgeon described interventions that would give our son the best chance of surviving birth. But the pediatrician could tell that we were looking for candid guidance. He cautioned that medical ethics constrained what he could say, then added, “Termination is a reasonable option, and a reasonable option that I can support.” The surgeon and nurse nodded in agreement. I burst out sobbing. My husband cried, too. But in a sense, the pediatrician’s words were a source of comfort and kindness. He said what we already knew. But we needed to hear it from professionals, who knew we were good parents who wanted what was best for our children.

The next day, at a clinic near my home, I felt my son’s budding life end as a doctor inserted a needle through my belly into his tiny heart. She had trouble finding it because of its abnormal position. As horrible as that moment was — it will live with me forever — I am grateful. We made sure our son was not born only to suffer. He died in a warm and loving place, inside me.

In having the abortion, we took a risk that my body would expel both fetuses, and that we would lose our daughter too. In fact, I asked if we could postpone the abortion until the third trimester, by which time my daughter would have been almost fully developed; my doctor pointed out that abortions after 24 weeks were illegal. Thankfully, Kaitlyn was born, healthy and beautiful, on March 2, 2011, and we love her to pieces. My little boy partially dissolved into me, and I like to think his soul is in his sister.

On Tuesday, the House of Representatives voted to ban abortion after 22 weeks of pregnancy, based on the disputed theory that fetuses at that stage are capable of feeling pain. The measure has no chance of passage in the Senate. But it is part of a trend toward restricting second- and even first-trimester abortions. Ten states have banned most abortions after 20 or 22 weeks; Arkansas, after 12; and North Dakota, after 6. Some of these laws are being challenged in court.

While some of these new restrictions allow exceptions for fetal genetic defects, second-trimester abortions must remain legal because, until a child is viable outside the womb, these decisions belong with the mother. I don’t know if Roe v. Wade will be overturned in my lifetime, but the chipping away of abortion rights is occurring at an astounding pace. I share my story in the hope that our leaders will be more responsible and compassionate when they weigh what it means to truly value the lives of women and children.

Judy Nicastro was a member of the Seattle City Council from 2000 through 2003.

Great story. Twins with a catastrophic health defect in one may be one situation where 'abortion' could save the life of an unborn.

All serious abortion bills contain exceptions for things like life and health of the mother, incest rape, etc. This consideration should be added to those exceptions with the doctor's advice and the wishes of the FAMILY paramount. More than 98% of abortions, Planned Parenthood's own data, are for convenience reasons, all about killing, not saving human life. If this woman is so serious in caring for the unborn, she should get involved with crafting exceptions that cover these circumstances, as she has by publishing this story. That makes more sense than her conclusion that we should oppose any restrictions on reckless killing of viable, mid to late term babies with live heartbeats that can already feel pain.

Her experience and view fits closer into the mindset of people protecting life than it does with those who support the killings. MHO

NYT has a story today about an abortion that went well. 20 year olds were able to keep their convenience, avoid consequence and avoid a stigma, complete masters degrees and then have a family. The would-be third oldest became the second oldest, the second oldest became the oldest and they all lived happily ever after, that is, except for that one that didn't.

Watch this be the end of liberal support for legal abortion. If gayness is born and innate, not learned, eventually we will be able to test for it and give women their choice as is now the case with Down Syndrome. When then abort, will it be a hate crime?

Anything protecting the kid before reaching 18 is an infringement on the woman's right of reproductive freedom, why stop at 4th trimester?

It is so odd in this debate that it is conservatives who want to protect the weakest, most innocent and most vulnerable and unproductive among us and the liberals who stop and judge their value to society so harshly. What about age discrimination and hate crimes? They couldn't care less.

Anything protecting the kid before reaching 18 is an infringement on the woman's right of reproductive freedom, why stop at 4th trimester?

It is so odd in this debate that it is conservatives who want to protect the weakest, most innocent and most vulnerable and unproductive among us and the liberals who stop and judge their value to society so harshly. What about age discrimination and hate crimes? They couldn't care less.

Anytime a leftist discusses some moral absolute, you know they are just posturing. The one thing they really believe in is power over others. Everything else is negotiable.

In the past, many in the pro-life movement have felt limited to protecting a life here and there -- passing some limited law to slightly control abortion in the more outrageous cases.

But some pro-lifers always seem to tiptoe around the Supreme Court, hoping they won't be offended.

Now the time to grovel before the Supreme Court is over.

Working from what the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade, pro-life lawmakers can pass a Life at Conception Act and end abortion using the Constitution instead of amending it.

That is why it's so urgent you sign the petition to your Senators and Congressman that I will link to in a moment.

You see, in the coming year it is vital every Member of Congress be put on record.

And your petition today will help do just that.

Signing the Life at Conception Act petition will help break through the opposition clinging to abortion-on-demand and get a vote on this life-saving bill to overturn Roe v. Wade.

A Life at Conception Act declares unborn children "persons" as defined by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, entitled to legal protection.

This is the one thing the Supreme Court admitted in Roe v. Wade that would cause the case for legal abortion to "collapse."

When the Supreme Court handed down its now-infamous Roe v. Wade decision, it did so based on a new, previously undefined "right of privacy" which it "discovered" in so-called "emanations" of "penumbrae" of the Constitution.

Of course, as constitutional law it was a disaster.

But never once did the Supreme Court declare abortion itself to be a constitutional right.

Instead the Supreme Court said:

"We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins . . . the judiciary at this point in the development of man's knowledge is not in a position to speculate as to the answer."

Then the High Court made a key admission:

"If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case [i.e., "Roe" who sought an abortion], of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [14th] Amendment."

The fact is, the 14th Amendment couldn't be clearer:

". . . nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law."

Furthermore, the 14th Amendment says:

"Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."

That's exactly what a Life at Conception Act would do.

But this simple, logical and obviously right legislation will not become law without a fight.

And that's where your help is critical. Please click here to sign your petition right away.

By turning up the heat on Congress in 2013 through a massive, national, grass-roots campaign, one of two things will happen.

If you and other pro-life activists pour on enough pressure, pro-lifers can force politicians from both parties who were elected on pro-life platforms to make good on their promises and ultimately win passage of this bill.

But even if a Life at Conception Act doesn't pass immediately, the public attention will set the stage to defeat radical abortionists in the next election.

Either way, the unborn win . . . unless you do nothing.

That's why the National Pro-Life Alliance is contacting hundreds of thousands of Americans just like you to mobilize a grass-roots army to pass a Life at Conception Act. The first thing you must do is sign your petition by clicking here.

They are the key ingredient in the National Pro-Life Alliance's plan to pass a Life at Conception Act. They'll also organize: ... Hard-hitting TV, radio and newspaper ads to be run just before each vote, detailing the horrors of abortion and mobilizing the American people.... Extensive personal lobbying of key members of Congress by rank and file National Pro-Life Alliance members and staff.... A series of newspaper columns to be distributed free to all 1,437 daily newspapers now published in the United States.... An extensive email, direct mail and telephone campaign to generate at least one million petitions to Congress like the one linked to in this letter.Of course, to do all this will take a lot of money.

Just to email and mail the letters necessary to produce one million petitions will cost at least $460,000.

The National Pro-Life Alliance's goal is to deliver one million petitions to the House and Senate in support of a Life at Conception Act.

When the bill comes up for a vote in Congress, it is crucial to have the full weight of an informed public backing the pro-life position.

I feel confident that the folks at National Pro-Life Alliance can gather those one million petitions.

But even though many Americans who receive this email will sign the petition, many won't be able to contribute. That's why it's vital you give $10, $25, $50, $100, or even more if you can.

Without your help the National Pro-Life Alliance will be unable to gather the one million petitions and mount the full-scale national campaign necessary to pass a Life at Conception Act.

A sacrificial gift of $35 or even $100 or $500 now could spare literally millions of innocent babies in years to come. But if that's too much, please consider chipping in with a donation of $10.

So please respond right away with your signed petition.

And please help with a contribution of at least $25 or $35. Some people have already given as much as $500. Others have given $50 and $100.

But no matter how much you give, whether it's chipping in with $10 or a larger contribution of $150, I guarantee your contribution is urgently needed and will be deeply appreciated.

That's why I hope and pray that you will not delay a moment to make a contribution of $1000, $500, $100, $50, $25, or even $10 if you can.

Your contribution to the National Pro-Life Alliance and your signed petition will be the first steps toward reversing Roe v. Wade and waking up the politicians about where our barbarous pro-abortion policy is taking us.

Sincerely,

Rand Paul,United States SenatorP.S. The Supreme Court itself admitted -- if Congress declares unborn children "persons" under the law, the constitutional case for abortion-on-demand "collapses."

Rand Paul agrees with Crafty's theory that Roe allows for congress to define when life begins.

The post sounds like the bill has no exceptions. I have argued that there is no serious bill that doesn't make exceptions for rape, incest, life of the mother, etc. A bill without exceptions is pandering to the right, not a serious attempt to win the center and change law IMO.

In this recent interview with Wolf Blitzer, Rand Paul says there will need to be "thousands of exceptions":

"Well, there’s going to be, like I say, thousands of extraneous situations where the life of the mother is involved and other things that are involved. So, I would say that each individual case would have to be addressed and even if there were eventually a change in the law, let’s say, the people came more to my way of thinking, it’s still be a lot of complicated things that the law may not ultimately be able to address in the early stages of pregnancy that would have to be part of what occurs between the physician and the woman and the family.”

Slightly up the thread is a rare situation where an abortion could save the life the life of the other unborn twin. We can't agree on 20 weeks but we suddenly will pass a bill for no abortions, no exceptions? There is a moral case to be made before a major law change. That argument won't be won without thoughtful provision for necessary exceptions.